The Manetti Shrem Museum presents NEW ERA, an installation by Doug Aitken

Los Angeles-based artist Doug Aitken has earned international acclaim with his groundbreaking work that redefines how we experience art. The Manetti Shrem Museum presents NEW ERA, an installation by Doug Aitken explores the technological ambivalence of contemporary culture, raising questions about the challenges of our immediate access to communication and networks. Drawing on a history of experimental music and cinema as well as a kinship with the protest movements of the late 1960s, Aitken’s immersive installation of moving images and sound creates a “liquid environment” that transforms viewers into collaborators.

Stephen Kaltenbach: The Beginning and The End

During the late 1960s, after graduating from UC Davis (BA, 1966; MA, 1967) and moving to New York, Stephen Kaltenbach established a reputation in the emergent international field of Conceptual art. In 1970, just as he was achieving career success, Kaltenbach abruptly withdrew to California’s Central Valley, appearing to abandon conceptual work in favor of more traditional mediums and modes. Fifty years later, the exhibition considers Kaltenbach’s engagement with time as a principal theme across his remarkably diverse career. His work plays with time itself as a medium: alternately projecting forwards and backwards, considering death as the ultimate disappearance, and exploring how artistic reputations are created—and erased—over the long passage of time.

The Gesture: The Human Figure After Abstraction
Selections from the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art

The Human Figure After Abstraction presents the transformational work of the first generation artists of the UC Davis art department as they engaged with the human figure after the emergence of abstraction. As part of the Bay Area Figurative Movement, Davis artists looked to abstract art while nurturing a distinctive identity for modernism. In opposition to the dominant philosophy of “pure painting” practiced in New York City, they were eager to express their personal encounters and close observations of the world they inhabited. Their varied art practices share a singular characteristic—a commitment to innovation and creative freedom. This exhibition offers a lens on the varying interpretations of the human figure and their individual contributions to the ever-expanding notion of modern art.